


Sacrifice

by pellucid



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pellucid/pseuds/pellucid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We decided that Daniel was more important than they were, and we killed them."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> post-"Lifeboat", Jack-Janet-Daniel friendship
> 
> Originally written in April 2005

"He's resting peacefully." The soft voice startled Jack from where he stood in the infirmary doorway, watching his friend sleep. "I just got some labs back, and they're all normal, as is his EEG." She looked exhausted, and Jack knew that she hadn't slept at all since they first returned from that planet. 

"It's almost 0200, Doc. Get some sleep."

She stepped inside the door and leaned against the wall opposite Jack. "Yeah, well, I just needed to make sure he's really going to be okay."

"He is, isn't he?" Jack was trying to be optimistic, but Daniel hadn't been conscious for much of the time since he had been…de-populated, and Jack wasn't going to relax completely just yet.

"Yes, he is," Janet replied.

"You did good, you know," he said after a pause. When Janet pursed her lips together and pinched the bridge of her nose, he wondered if he had said the wrong thing.

"No, sir." Her voice was very small, a tone he had only heard from Janet Fraiser on very isolated occasions. "No, I didn't. I let my concern for one patient's life completely override all other ethical concerns."

"Doc—"

"No, sir. Don't tell me that it's okay. Because it's Daniel? Because we've just gotten him back, and dammit, we're not going to let *anyone* take him away from us again?" She looked at him, her jaw set and her face determined. "Those people's bodies may have been dead, but their minds were alive."

"And they still are." Jack wasn't expecting the threatening tone that his voice assumed.

"Sir. We both know that by putting them inside Pharrin we are essentially condemning them all. The human body just can't sustain that. Even if somehow it doesn't physically kill him, his mind won't be able to handle it. We decided that Daniel was more important than they were, and we killed them."

"Look, what else were we supposed to do? Where else were we supposed to put them?" He sighed and looked again over at Daniel. "We just got him back, Doc."

"I know," she whispered. "And so help me God, I would probably kill more people to keep him here. And that thought terrifies me more than anything."

Jack felt a little like he had been socked in the gut as he watched her standing there, the dimmed infirmary lights casting strange shadows across her face. She was right, of course. They had gotten too close and allowed their emotions to cloud their judgment. Yet what was the alternative? "But we just got him back," he repeated helplessly.

"Yes. We got him back after he sacrificed himself for the good of a bunch of people who didn't deserve it. A choice I'm not sure he wouldn't have made again today, had he been given the choice. And I certainly don't relish telling him what happened. But I love him, and I'm selfish."

"Janet—" 

She cut him off with a raised hand. "We got too close today, Colonel. And it will probably happen again. But we can't pretend that everything is okay."

She pushed herself up from the inertia of the wall, cast a long look at the sleeping figure in the bed, and walked slowly out of the room.


End file.
